I'm back!

The movers came and swept me away back to Nova Scotia, but miles and kilometres away from my real home. It was a lovely warm day for a move. Now I am ensconced in a delightful town and here is the view from my living room window:

What it does not show is that the apartment residents have attached laundry lines to the trees below. We are green here. Besides, the machines in the building are coin operated.

And finally I look out my bedroom window at an underwear factory. I hear they have a factory outlet. I have already received orders and sizes from family members. When I was small all the boys wore long underwear under their britches, and they were always called "Stanfields".

goodbye New Brunswick

I have been cleaning off this laptop before I turn it into the office tomorrow. I shall be at least a week without a computer unless I go to a community access. So it is good bye to New Brunswick. I've enjoyed my time here. I had driven through many times, but had never got to know it. This is definitely not a drive-through province.

I begin a new position in Nova Scotia next week.

So no laptop means that the blogs will stop for a while, and I shall miss you all.

Disclosure number five: I am lost without a computer - going into withdrawal. I can feel it coming on.

climate action

In the rain, on the boardwalk, in Saint John, the action was hosted by the Council of Canadians who were having their Annual General Meeting in a nearby hotel. So we were addressed by Maude Barlow, their president, but I was most impressed by the representative from the CAW (the Canadian autoworkers union). She had just returned from a worldwide convention of industrial workers and reiterated about how they wanted jobs, but green sustainable jobs. And I met an old acquaintenace who had taken the ferry across the Bay to join the action. We went for coffee after the demonstration and reconnected.

I'm in one of the pictures. It's sort of like finding Waldo.

So disclosure number four: My first demonstration was during the Civil Rights Movement, when they were marching in Selma, we were demonstrating outside the American Consulate in Montreal. I returned home from college on the bus later than usual - "So what were you doing" greeted me. I explained, and my grandfather exploded. Demonstrating was not something we did in our family. Well things change, I'm proud when I know one of my sons has been out stomping for a cause.

What are you doing Saturday?

packing up again

Enough said about this moving disaster

Self disclosure number 3: I broke the sexist bar at the Montreal Gazette. I was their first female carrier. I was in grade seven. Up at five thirty, over top the drop off point, loading up my bag and then house to house. I got good tips. And later when the carriers used to come around to collect and punch the cards, I always gave them a good tip. They don't do that anymore

Revisiting yesterday's art: See the comment left for yesterday. Here is a blow up of the other picture: an English Jesus in a bedsheet, in an English garden, with three adorable English children. If you double click it and blow it up you can see the fighter plane in the boy's hand.  I could write a thesis on the militarism, imperialism and racism wrapped up in a sweet religious dressing displayed in this picture.


In the interest of racial equality and animal rights (the singing panda), here is a Christian Science offering which I found on: http://www.ship-of-fools.com 

Perhaps I now need to redeem myself by leaving you with something with, in my view, more substance. I think this is really quite moving:

Jesus in a bedsheet

I've finishing clearing out my office and have taken out pictures that I had hidden in the closet. So here they are back on the wall.. Have you ever thought about this good shepherd - wandering in the back country wrapped in a white bed sheet? There are two rams in flock - a flock only needs one ram, The flock consists of females - ewes - in the spring they drop their lambs. Half of the lambs would be males - which means that they are slaughtered. Shepherds eat lamb chops. Jesus was not a vegetarian. And he could not have been the paleface in the picture. So disclosure number two. I cannot abide religious sentimentality. I smile sweetly and think about how precious it all is. "Precious" is the word I substitute for "Who gives a sh.../fu...".  I love reading Geez Magazine:

http://www.geezmagazine.org/

Day for Climate Change

I'll be in the crowd on Saint John's Boardwalk. Where will you be? 

Here's from 350.org: It looks like the International Day of Climate Action this Saturday October 24th will be the single most widespread day of political action the planet has ever seen--we're closing in on 170 nations, and more than 4000 rallies and events.
There will be climate events from the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef to the summit of Mount Everest.  At each event -- at rallies and parties and deep-sea dives -- people will take a big photo that somehow depicts the number 350.  Our crew at 350.org will be taking these thousands of photos, projecting them on the giant screens in New York's Times Square, and delivering them directly to hundreds of world leaders and politicians in the coming weeks.

There's almost certainly an event happening near you--if you're not sure what, this link will let you find out quickly and easily:

www.350.org/map

People in all those cities and towns all around the world will be saying the same thing: science tells us that we can't have more than 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere if we want a planet like the one we were born onto. That sounds complicated, but it isn't--350 is the bottom line for the earth.